Talkback: Go local to beat TV ad turn-off

Jonathan Russell

With the advent of DVRs and the imminent launch of New Zealand's first personalised TV offering (My Sky, coming from Sky TV this month), there is a view that TV advertising has had its day.

A ripple of panic has spread through the advertising industry - what does this mean for ad-flaks, brands, advertising?

While absolute penetration of DVRs in the United States is still small, it's growing. Experience there suggests that DVR owners tend to be relatively affluent, male and urban-dwelling.

As Karen Chan pointed out in her column on September 8, one way that advertisers will fight back is through product placement in movies and on primetime TV. But more than this, we see it driving fundamental change in the way we as an industry think about reaching consumers.

Personalisation will be the key. What PVRs and DVRs will give us is detailed, segmented consumer data, so we know with more precision who we are talking to. This means ads in their present form must change to become more targeted, creative, specific, interactive and engaging.

We also need to consider the vast array of other media today's consumers have at their fingertips and how these enable us to get even closer to consumers. With the rise and rise of the screen in its myriad forms - cellphones, video iPods, the internet - and people's growing dependence on these devices, advertisers won't run out of ad placement choices.

In this increasingly fragmented media landscape, integration continues to be the Holy Grail. And this means a lot more than just making sure a brand's advertising across multiple media shares a distinctive look and feel. It means bringing the brand promise alive at every touch-point for the consumer.

At Saatchi & Saatchi, this philosophy influences everything we do. In retail, 80 per cent of our work is about things other than ads. It's about staff training, design, packaging and in-store placement - all the things that make the consumer's interaction with the brand real.

Similarly, in social marketing, TVCs play a key role in shifting attitudes. But to generate real behaviour change, the concept must come alive in communities: on the road, in schools, churches, golf clubs and marae.

There is a Chinese proverb: "Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand." The same holds true for advertising. It's not just about a pretty package; it's about getting involved with people at a community level. And if you don't like the sound of that, think back to our not-so-distant past.

Traditionally, we all had relationships with the businesses in our local community: the butcher, grocer, postman and milkman. But with the assault of advertising and the explosion of global brands, we have become more selective about who we talk to and what we read and watch.

With the personalisation of media, we're going to be able to build depth of relationships, not just breadth.

Bring on the global local. The world just became a little smaller.

* Jonathan Russell is general manager of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi Wellington.